What is ad recall

An ad recall is a measure of advertising memorability used in research to assess how much the target audience remembers a specific advertisement.

It is expressed as a percentage and concerns consumers who belong to a certain target group who remember the advertising message without the need for verbal or visual prompts.

Ad recall is divided into different levels:

• Unaided recall: spontaneous memory, when the consumer remembers the advertisement without any help;
• Aided recall: assisted memory, when the consumer recalls the ad if prompted by the interviewer with particular associative techniques;
• Related recall: pertinent memory, when respondents describe a specific element, visual or verbal, of the advertising communication that makes the consumer remember it.

In practice, ad recall is measured by showing ads to consumers and later asking them questions about those ads. 

However, popular platforms like Facebook and YouTube have their own ways of measuring ad recall.

These platforms help advertisers understand more about brand awareness campaigns.

How is ad recall measured?

On many platforms, ad recall is measured through impressions:

• Low impressions: a sign of a poor campaign;
• High impressions: a sign of a good campaign.

Impressions indicate only the publication, that is if your ad has appeared on a screen.

The count of impressions only means that there were opportunities for the ad to be displayed, not that the ad was actually viewed, so much more is needed to measure ad recall: the click-through. 

Click-throughs are the goal of an advertising campaign because they turn users into visitors, who then perform a conversion.

How is ad recall measured on Facebook?

Ad recall can be measured in different ways depending on who calculates it.

On Facebook, the metric for ad recall is defined as "estimated ad recall."

This metric is available for those who set these goals:

• Page post engagement;
• Video views;
• Optimization of ad recall lift.

The "estimated" metric that Facebook uses, offers advertisers an idea of how many people might remember seeing their ad if they were asked within two days. 

According to Facebook, it is an opportunity for optimization for campaigns and to show your ads to people who are most likely to remember your ad within two days of viewing it.

To make this happen, surveys on the social network itself are used to determine whom to deliver the ad based on:

• Behavior: the relationship someone has with your page, their likelihood of interacting with the ad;
• In the survey: the algorithm conducts thousands of surveys every day on a random sample of campaigns asking people if they remember an ad.

Thanks to the various surveys, more specific metrics can be obtained on the calculation of ad recall.

How is ad recall measured on Youtube?

On YouTube, the calculation of ad recall is similar to that of Facebook.

To begin with, they use surveys, dividing them into two groups: those who have been exposed to the ad and those who have not.

YouTube then asks both groups the same question about the ad to determine whether recall has improved and the interest that the campaign generates for your brand.

The studies on brand interest are available only for video campaigns and to be eligible, the campaign must:

• Having the quota limit enabled, with a maximum frequency of 3 per day;
• Making listings that contain only video advertising elements;
• Providing at least 1.5 million impressions per research request.

So as to measure all the metrics of an ad recall more effectively.

For a message to be memorable, it must be seen in an engaging and interesting way, so as to have an effective advertising campaign and a positive impact with the brand.